Foods can be divided into two categories: Those which can be fried, and those which, as many of us have discovered in a sodden, late-night session with a $20 deep-fryer, cannot. Leftover pizza? Deli meats? Juice? At the Machine Project's holiday Fry-a-Thon in Echo Park tomorrow, guests can come to their own conclusions, bringing edibles to hand off to a trained frying technician.

This is a members-only event, but thankfully, memberships to the community-oriented art collective start at $32 a year. That's a mid-week bar tab–hardly more expensive than the brace of free-range chickens you may want to dunk in batter and submerge in gurgling oil. When you're at the grocery store, brainstorming experiments, remember that liquid nitrogen will be on hand for all your flash-freezing needs.

Machine Project's Annual “Fry-B-Q”: Saturday, December 18th, 7-10 p.m. 1200 D N. Alvarado St., Echo Park; 213-483-8761.

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